Gender and racial differences in peer effects of limited English students: a story of language or ethnicity?

Timothy M Diette,Ruth Uwaifo Oyelere

doi:10.1186/s40176-016-0074-y

Abstract

There is a perception among native born parents in the USA that the increasing number of immigrant students in schools creates negative peer effects on their children. In North Carolina, there has been a significant increase in immigrants, especially those with limited English language skills. Recent data suggests that North Carolina has the eighth largest English-language learner (ELL) student population and over 60 % of immigrants are from Latin America and the Caribbean. While past research suggests negative though negligible peer effects of Limited English (LE) students and black students on the achievement of other students, potential peer effects of students from Latin America in general have not been considered. In this paper, we attempt to identify both LE student and Latin American (LA) student peer effects by separately utilizing fixed effects methods that allow us to deal with the potential selectivity across time and schools. On average, we find no evidence of negative peer effects of LE students on females and white students but note small negative effects on average on males and black students. We also find that, holding constant other factors, an increase in the share of LA students does not create negative peer effects on native students’ achievement. Rather, it is the limited English language skills of some of these students that lead to small, negative peer effects on natives.JEL Classification: I20, I21, J15, J24.

Highlights

The USA has experienced significant demographic changes over the past 35 years
7 Conclusions In this paper, we focus on three basic questions: first, do significant shares of Limited English (LE) students in a school affect the academic performance of boys and girls or black and white students differently? Second, does the share of Latin American (LA) students in a school affect the academic performance of boys and girls or black and white students? Third, are the gender and racial differences in LE and LA peer effects, if any, distributed differently within the achievement distribution?
Our findings show that on average, LE student shares have no effect on girls both in math and reading but have significant negative effects on the test performance of boys in the top of the achievement distribution in math and reading

Summary

Introduction

The USA has experienced significant demographic changes over the past 35 years. According to Census Bureau reports, the share of the US population that is foreign-born has increased from 6.2 % in 1980 to 13.3 % in 2014, and it is projected to increase to 18.2 % by 2050—populations of 14.1 million, 42.3 million, and 72.3 million foreignborn residents, respectively. By using different econometric approaches and studying different grades, Santillano (2009) and Diette and Uwaifo Oyelere (2014, 2012) both search for peer effects in North Carolina focused on this subset of immigrants.9 Both papers find significant heterogeneity in the effects of LE students on natives.

Results

Conclusion